The recent annual Oregon Business Plan Summit brought business and community leaders, the governor, and Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley together in support of the three primary goals of the 2014 plan: job creation, raising Oregon’s personal income level and reducing Oregon’s poverty rate from 17 percent to 10 percent. A significant focus was devoted towards the current momentum and opportunities associated with “Unlocking Oregon’s Natural Wealth to Restore Rural Prosperity.”

In the past few years, community-based forest collaborative groups have multiplied across the state. These groups, composed of environmentalists, loggers, mill owners, county government and local citizens, are finding common ground to restore forest health and provide jobs in rural communities…